Macaronesian sharpnose puffer
Fish · Last reviewed 2026-08-25
A palm-sized puffer of the Atlantic islands that takes lures freely — and a fish nobody should eat, because puffers carry tetrodotoxin and there is no antidote.
Safety: contamination and toxins in the catch — can cause serious injury or death. One more point applies here.
Contamination and toxins in the catch — Can cause serious injury or death
Pufferfish accumulate tetrodotoxin, and to a lesser extent saxitoxin, in the skin, gonads, liver and digestive tract. Tetrodotoxin blocks nerve conduction and kills by respiratory paralysis. There is no antidote, and the toxin is not destroyed by cooking, freezing or any domestic preparation. Analysis of the related Guinean puffer taken at Madeira measured up to 15 mg of tetrodotoxin per kilogram in the digestive tract and 7.4 mg per kilogram in the gonads of individual fish.
What reduces it: Do not eat it, do not keep it and do not clean it. Return it to the water. Anybody who has eaten a puffer and develops tingling around the mouth, numbness, weakness or difficulty breathing needs emergency medical care immediately — this progresses, and the treatment is supported breathing rather than a drug.
Worse when:
- Preparing the fish at home on the assumption that removing the guts makes it safe: the skin carries toxin too.
- Cooking, which does not destroy tetrodotoxin at any temperature reached in a kitchen.
- Handling a puffer and then handling food without washing, particularly after gutting one.
Catching Macaronesian sharpnose puffer
Everything here on fishing for it. Each entry opens the page behind it.
- Ground
- When
- May — months recorded at the places that document it, not a season for the whole range.
- Where
- 2 places FishingHQ documents — strongest claim anywhere: recorded here · From the shore
This is a small, pretty, confiding fish that will take a soft plastic on the first cast, and the most important thing on its record is that it must not be eaten.
*Canthigaster capistrata* is a sharpnose puffer: a compact, pointed-snouted, big-eyed little fish reaching a FishBase maximum of 9.2 cm, patterned in brown and cream with blue and pale markings around the head and eye. It is a Macaronesian near-endemic, described by FishBase as known from oceanic islands, in reef water from the surface to about 20 m. Eight of them came to a light-tackle angler in a week around Puerto del Carmen, one on the first cast at a new mark.
PUFFERS AND TETRODOTOXIN. Fish of the family Tetraodontidae accumulate tetrodotoxin and saxitoxin in the skin, gonads, liver and gut. Tetrodotoxin blocks nerve conduction, kills by respiratory paralysis, and has no antidote. Measured concentrations in the Macaronesian puffers are not trivial: a study of the Guinean puffer taken at Madeira found up to 15 mg of tetrodotoxin per kilogram in the digestive tract and 7.4 mg per kilogram in the gonads of individual fish. Nothing about preparation at home makes that safe, and the toxin is not destroyed by cooking.
So the correct handling of this species is the simple one: unhook it and put it back. It is also worth knowing that puffers bite — the fused beak is built to crush shellfish, and one of the fish in the Lanzarote tally was found with scorpionfish tooth marks on it, which says something about how the food chain works on that ground rather than about the puffer's manners.
It is separated from the other Canary puffer, the Guinean puffer, by size and shape: this one is smaller, sharper-snouted and more laterally compressed, and *Sphoeroides marmoratus* is rounder and reaches twice the length.
Where Macaronesian sharpnose puffer is documented
Places where public sources describe this species as fished, with how it is fished and how strongly the evidence supports it. This is not a range map and it is not a recommendation — it is what has been written down about a fishery rather than a record of any individual catch, and being listed is never permission to fish.
Lanzarote
2 documented places
The cliff coast between Puerto del Carmen and Puerto Calero
Rock mark
Recorded here
From the shore
Reported May
Puerto del Carmen harbour, Lanzarote
Harbour wall
Recorded here
From the shore
Reported May
What these strengths mean
- Recorded here
- At least one credible public account of this species being caught here. That is all it means.
Identification
No photograph of Macaronesian sharpnose puffer has passed identity review yet, so none is shown. FishingHQ publishes a species photograph only once somebody has confirmed the animal in it against the species record’s own diagnostic features.
- Scientific name
- Canthigaster capistrata
- Family
- Tetraodontidae
- Water
- Saltwater
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Regions
- Western Europe, West Africa
- Small and pointed: a sharply tapered snout on a laterally compressed body, unlike the rounder, blunter Guinean puffer.
- Very small — FishBase records a maximum of 9.2 cm, against 20 cm for the Guinean puffer.
- Brown and cream mottling with blue and pale lines and spots about the head and around the large eye.
- A fused beak of four teeth rather than separate teeth, which is what makes it a puffer.
- No pelvic fins, and slow, precise swimming on the pectoral and soft dorsal fins.
Size
- Typical
- 5–8 cm
- Large
- 9 cm
Exceptional: FishBase records a maximum of 9.2 cm
Lifecycle and reproduction
Reef-associated over a depth range of 0 to 20 m, entirely within the water a shore angler covers. High resilience. FishBase describes it as known from oceanic islands, which is as narrow a habitat statement as the database gives.
Not documented on the FishBase record. Canthigaster species generally spawn in pairs over a prepared algal nest site; that is a genus-level pattern and is not asserted about this fish.
Feeding and senses
Crushes small hard-shelled invertebrates with the fused beak, working slowly and deliberately over reef. It investigates and attacks anything small that arrives in its space, which is why it takes soft plastics as readily as it does and why an angler fishing light in the islands catches them without trying.
Excellent close-range binocular vision — the eyes move independently and it watches a lure approach. It is not shy, and it can usually be watched taking the bait.
Through the year
Resident year-round on shallow reef throughout the Atlantic islands, which means an angler fishing light in the Canaries in any month should expect to meet one. There is no season in which the toxicity is different, and no season in which it becomes safe to eat.
Distribution
Eastern Central Atlantic: known from oceanic islands
This is a biological range — where the species occurs, not a prediction that you will catch one. To browse the fishing geography FishingHQ holds, start at fishing places.
Why anglers care
A frequent and unavoidable capture in Canary, Madeiran and Azorean light rock fishing, taken on small soft plastics and scraps of bait. It has no value as food and must not be treated as having any. Its real significance to an angler is as the fish that makes knowing what a puffer is, and what to do with one, a practical rather than an academic matter.
Handling and returning
Unhook it in the water where possible, with pliers, keeping fingers away from the beak — it crushes shellfish for a living. Do not squeeze it or make it inflate, which is a stress response rather than a trick. Put it back. Do not keep it, do not clean it and do not eat it.
Safety
Contamination and toxins in the catch is set out at the top of this page, where it cannot be missed.
Species that bite — Minor injury
The fused beak is built to crush shellfish and will take a piece out of a finger placed near it, on a fish that is entirely willing to bite while being unhooked.
What reduces it: Unhook with pliers and keep fingers clear of the mouth. Do not hold the fish by the head.
Where to go next
Similar and related fish
Where it lives
More fish
Not related to this page — just the rest of the section. There is little else joined to this subject yet, and a short page should still lead somewhere.
Sources and evidence
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Family, maximum size, depth range, environment, distribution and the IUCN assessment for Canthigaster capistrata.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species — International Union for Conservation of Nature (Conservation authority)Relied on for: The Least Concern assessment for Canthigaster capistrata, assessed 08 June 2011.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Tetrodotoxin and saxitoxin in two native puffer fish from the NE Atlantic (Madeira Island) — Marine Environmental Research (Elsevier), 2019 (Scientific literature)Relied on for: The presence and measured concentrations of tetrodotoxin and saxitoxin in native Macaronesian pufferfish tissues, including the digestive tract and gonad figures for Sphoeroides marmoratus at Madeira.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Species hunting adventures on Lanzarote — a four-part shore diary with a full tally — Something Fishy Going On (angling blog), parts also posted to World Sea Fishing, 2014 (Practitioner report)Relied on for: That this species is taken from named public shore marks on Lanzarote, how many were caught across one week in May, and the light-tackle methods and baits that took them.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Why the 3 connections on this page are here, and the sources
Similar and related fish
Backed by research — 1 connection
Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
Guinean puffer
Canthigaster capistrata is sharply snouted, laterally compressed and reaches 9.2 cm; Sphoeroides marmoratus is rounder, blunter and reaches 20 cm. The separation matters less for the hazard, which applies to both, than for knowing which fish the measured toxin figures belong to.
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: The morphology, size, depth range and distribution that separate these two species from one another.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How it is caught
Reported, not established — 1 connection
Reported, but without independent support. Recorded because it is in circulation, not because it has been shown to hold.
Light rock fishing
Recorded eight times on small soft plastics. It is caught whether or not it is wanted, which is the practical reason its record exists: an angler fishing light in the islands will meet one.
- Species hunting adventures on Lanzarote — a four-part shore diary with a full tally — Something Fishy Going On (angling blog), parts also posted to World Sea Fishing, 2014 (Practitioner report)Relied on for: The light-tackle methods, rigs, lures, baits and hook sizes a species-hunting angler used on Lanzarote, and the species each took.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Where it lives
Backed by research — 1 connection
Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
Rocky shores and reefs
Recorded as reef-associated over a depth range of 0 to 20 m and known from oceanic islands, which is as narrow a habitat statement as FishBase gives.
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Environment, depth range, habitat association and distribution for Canthigaster capistrata.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy.